*The top 50% of income earners pay 96.5% of federal income taxes, while the lower 50% pay just 3.5%.

*The top 25% pay 83.88% of federal income taxes

*The top 10% pay 65.8% (these are people with an adjusted cross income of about $95,000 or higher)

*The top 5% pay 54.4%

*The top 1% pay 34.3% (these are people with an adjusted gross income of about $300,000 or higher)

Kinda makes your stats look silly huh?

By the way, nothing you mentioned in your post carries any relevancy, or implies any justification for income redistribution – just hollow, emotional frustration.

Quit whining about ‘the rich getting richer’ and try to become one of them – then you’ll realize the error in your current mindset.

“According to the most recent data from the IRS, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans took home a greater share of the nation‚Äôs income in 2006 than in any year of the previous 19. It‚Äôs possibly the biggest income disparity Americans have seen since the Great Depression. The average tax rate of the super-rich was at its lowest level in at least 18 years.”

“According to the figures, the richest 1% reported 22% of the nation‚Äôs total adjusted gross income in 2006. That is up from 21.2% a year earlier, and is the highest in the 19 years that the IRS has kept strictly comparable figures. The 1988 level was 15.2%. Earlier IRS data show the last year the share of income belonging to the top 1% was at such a high level as it was in 2006 was in 1929, but changes in measuring income make a precise comparison difficult.”

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121677287690575589.html

Rich getting richer, indeed.

I find the premise of this album, website and competition offensively laughable. The very fact that Mr. McCoury is capitalizing on the movement generated by his work reveals the flimsy nature of the very premises it’s coasting on. For him to denigrate our remnants of Capitalism, the only system that allows talented individuals like himself to objectively prosper, is a humorous spectacle. The only reasonable conclusion I can draw from Del’s many ‘calls to action’ is that he’s supporting the cause for more government meddling in the economy, more income redistribution and more sacrifice of individuals for the sake of the collective. Doesn’t the ‘Golden Rule’ lose some of it’s splendor when it becomes compulsory?

He thinks rural America has it bad now? Just wait until what’s left of our economy is suffocated by more regulation – when those corporate “non hard-working” types stop providing what jobs are left.

I used to be a Del McCoury fan‚Ķ I really did. His latest endeavor and the surrounding stench has changed that. I appreciate the value in separating artists from their politics, but he’s made that practice a difficult task with this project.

Thanks Del, that’s just what America needs… more patently un-american progress. Stick to music, when it comes to philosophy and economics, you’re in over your head.

“economic injustice…” – what a joke.